


Our Remedies Oft In Ourselves Do Lie

by SoCalGirl28



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22331068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoCalGirl28/pseuds/SoCalGirl28
Summary: What if JJ had had more courage after Reid was kidnapped by Tobias Hankel? What if the reason she beat herself up so much was because she felt like she could’ve gotten the man she loved killed? How would their lives and the lives of the team be changed by her confession?
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Spencer Reid
Comments: 8
Kudos: 56





	Our Remedies Oft In Ourselves Do Lie

One more night in this state and Spencer Reid would be going home. He was ready to be done with this state, this town and this case. The team had rescued him from Tobias Hankel well into the night and so had decided to stay in their hotel until the next afternoon to fly back to Virginia.

The knock at his hotel room door startled Spencer. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to come and see him after he had asked to be alone. The team usually tried to respect each other’s privacy and wishes. This job was hard and sometimes they needed to be alone when they were done with it. 

He quickly hid the vial and syringe he had stolen from Tobias. He had been contemplating using it. He didn’t want to and yet he did. The two sides of his brain were warring with themselves. His rational mind and irrational mind. 

“Reid? It’s JJ.” Came a voice from the door. “I need to talk to you.”

He made his way across the room and opened the door. JJ was standing there, looking disheveled and worried, not much like herself. JJ was usually well put together, even on their toughest cases.

“Hey, Spence.” She sighed. “Can I come in and talk?”

“Sure.” He said quietly, opening the door wider so she could enter the room.

She made her way across the hotel room and sat down on the queen bed that he had not claimed. He sat down on the other bed across from her.

“What’s up?” He asked. 

“I just - I feel responsible, Spence.” She sighed, running her hand through her blonde hair. 

“For Tobias taking me?” 

“Yeah. We never should’ve split up. Maybe if we hadn’t-”

Spencer cut her off. “JJ, you know you can’t think like that. If we hadn’t split up, we may have both been killed or you could’ve been the one taken.” 

“At least then I would’ve known that I didn’t get the man that I-” She cut herself off and looked down at her hands. 

There was silence between them. It felt like minutes passed quietly but it could’ve been seconds. He couldn’t tell as his mind raced, filling in the gaps where she had cut her words off. Spencer was a genius but his mind wasn’t a computer. Despite what some kids had said on the playground, he wasn’t apathetic and unemotional. His mind was just as susceptible to emotions as anyone else’s. There was no way he was right. That she meant what his mind thought she meant. 

Spencer cleared his throat. “The man that you, what?”

JJ gave a watery laugh and wrung her hands together. “You’re a genius, Spence. Surely you’ve figured out how that sentence was going to end.”

“I don’t know.” Spencer said quietly. 

He didn’t want to finish the sentence out loud. What if he was wrong? No one knew, but there was a reason he hadn’t been on a date in over a year. He had always had a crush on JJ but it had developed into more as he spent more time with her. The feelings had turned from a crush to love. But he had never intended to say anything. He still had nightmares about the time he told a girl he had feelings for when he was a teenager and they had laughed in his face. He never wanted that humiliation again and he definitely didn’t want to alienate someone who, besides being a woman he loved, was his best friend.

“I stumped the genius Dr. Reid?”

“Not stumped, exactly. Just, you can’t mean what I seem to think you meant.”

“You can’t imagine that a woman could love you?” She whispered, glancing up at him quickly.

“You love me?”

She gave a short laugh, “For over a year, Spence.”

“But, but you never said anything.” 

“I wasn’t going to.” She sighed.

“Why not?” He asked in amazement.

“You deserve a woman like you, a genius. A mind who can keep up with you, understand everything that comes out of your mouth.”

Spencer laughed softly. “IQ levels are not really an indication of intelligence. I’ve met some really stupid people with high IQs before, believe me. But you know, you aren’t alone in your feelings.”

JJ looked up sharply from where she had been twisting a ring on her finger. “What?”

“I was never going to say anything either. I had some bad experiences when I was younger and didn’t really want to go through them again.”

“We’re idiots.” JJ laughed with a tilt of her head. 

Spencer smiled as the room became quiet once more. He broke the soft silence with a laugh.

“I think Gideon knows.”

JJ stared at him. “He does?”

“The football game last year. He got those tickets specifically to nudge me into asking you out. I was too nervous to ask you for anything more than a friendly hangout.” 

JJ shook her head. “Yeah, we’re definitely obtuse.”

“Would you want to?” Spencer began hesitantly.

“Go on a proper date?” JJ smiled as he nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“JJ, before you knocked on the door, I was going to do something extremely stupid.” He brought out the vial of Dilaudin along with the syringe. 

“Spencer.” JJ stared at the vial in his hand.

“Hankel, he, uh, kept drugging me with it. It made me feel, I don’t know, it made the bad memories numb. I was debating using it again when you knocked at the door.”

JJ took the vial and syringe from his hands gently. “We need to go to Hotch and Gideon with this. They need to know.”

“I don’t want them to judge me.”

JJ grabbed his hand and linked her fingers with his, squeezing tenderly.

“You know they won’t. What you went through was traumatizing but you need proper help with it, not drugs. Will you come with me?” 

“Yeah.” He said faintly.

She got up from the bed, keeping their hands linked. She placed the vial and syringe in her pocket and opened the door. She led him through the hallway to Gideon’s hotel room and knocked on the door. 

It was a few minutes but finally Gideon opened the door looking a bit pissed off to be woken up after such a long and hard case. 

He glanced down at their hands. “Took you two long enough. I thought I was going to have to be less subtle in my nudges to make you both realize your feelings. If you’re looking for permission, you know the fraternization policy is just a rumor, right? It’s not actually in any handbook.” 

“Yes, sir. We know. That’s not why we’re here.” JJ said as Spencer glanced at his feet. 

She brought out the vial and syringe from her pocket. “Hankel did more to Spencer than just torture. He gave him drugs.” 

Gideon breathed a heavy sigh. “JJ, go wake up Hotch.” He nodded at the door across the hallway. “Reid, come in and sit down. This is going to be a long night.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, you can blame the season 14 finale and season 15’s resolution for this fic. I’ve always loved the idea of Reid and JJ and honestly the show writers have pissed me off. Teasing me with what could’ve been. 
> 
> I do enjoy Will/JJ, I think they’re a good couple but Reid and JJ will always be my OTP.
> 
> Don’t know if it’ll be updated regularly, I’ve got about 5 other unfinished projects on my plate. But I just had to get this off my chest.
> 
> (Title is from Shakespeare’s All’s Well That End’s Well)


End file.
